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31_days2006-11-03 06:53 am
sophiap.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2006-11-03 06:53 am
[November 3] [Avatar] She dreams in color
Title: She dreams in color
Day/Theme: November 3 - my pillow won't tell me where he has gone
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Toph
Rating: PG
Toph may be blind, but she knows what white is. White is feathers and down, white is pillows and blankets piled high, white is being shut off from all sensation.
Her mother once told her a story about a fine young lady (which meant that the story was meant to be A Lesson, and which meant that Toph was immediately on the defensive) who was so refined and so sensitive (and so useless, Toph mentally added) that she was able to detect one miserable little dried pea under vast strata of mattresses and featherbeds.
Toph isn't sure what the story is meant to teach her, because as far as she's concerned, it's pure, unadulterated crap. Feeling a pea? Under all that fine and fancy bedding she is tucked away into each and every night? No way.
No, the feather and the blankets and the pillows and the quilts muffle every damned thing, turning her world into an expanse of what she always thinks of as white. Blankness, nothingness. She can barely even tell up from down.
She wonders if her mother knows what kind of prison she is creating as she carefully fluffs the pillows and turns down the blankets just so. Sometimes, Toph is positive that her mother does know.
She's being put away into a soft, feathery nest, much the way her mother puts her jewelry away into padded velvet boxes. Her mother helps her up into bed (even though she doesn't need any help), and then pulls the sheets up over her carefully, as if the finely woven linen would bruise and abrade her skin. Then there's the barest brush of a kiss on her forehead, a soft "good night, Toph," and then her mother simply vanishes. Toph cannot feel her footsteps, cannot feel the door sliding shut behind her. Nothing. She's trapped in the white.
And so every night she waits until long after everyone else has gone to sleep. Then, Toph slides out of her confusing, confounding bed, moving gingerly until her foot touches solid ground and she can see again.
It's child's play to sneak out into the garden; now that she's freed from her bed she can "see" all the servants from rooms away. Once she's made it outside, she heads straight for the pile of gravel that's used to refresh the walks and the dry gardens.
She flops down into the rocks with an unlady-like grunt of satisfaction. The gravel makes way for her and covers her with a satisfyingly rough blanket, but it does not coddle her. She feels each bump and jagged bit, but that's the way her bed is supposed to be. She's supposed to be able to feel the distant footsteps, the slow growing of roots beneath the earth, the deep background rumbling of tectonic plates sliding against each other far, far away. It lulls her to sleep, far more comforting than any stupid featherbed could hope to be.
Toph may be blind, but she likes to think that she dreams in color.
Day/Theme: November 3 - my pillow won't tell me where he has gone
Series: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Character/Pairing: Toph
Rating: PG
Toph may be blind, but she knows what white is. White is feathers and down, white is pillows and blankets piled high, white is being shut off from all sensation.
Her mother once told her a story about a fine young lady (which meant that the story was meant to be A Lesson, and which meant that Toph was immediately on the defensive) who was so refined and so sensitive (and so useless, Toph mentally added) that she was able to detect one miserable little dried pea under vast strata of mattresses and featherbeds.
Toph isn't sure what the story is meant to teach her, because as far as she's concerned, it's pure, unadulterated crap. Feeling a pea? Under all that fine and fancy bedding she is tucked away into each and every night? No way.
No, the feather and the blankets and the pillows and the quilts muffle every damned thing, turning her world into an expanse of what she always thinks of as white. Blankness, nothingness. She can barely even tell up from down.
She wonders if her mother knows what kind of prison she is creating as she carefully fluffs the pillows and turns down the blankets just so. Sometimes, Toph is positive that her mother does know.
She's being put away into a soft, feathery nest, much the way her mother puts her jewelry away into padded velvet boxes. Her mother helps her up into bed (even though she doesn't need any help), and then pulls the sheets up over her carefully, as if the finely woven linen would bruise and abrade her skin. Then there's the barest brush of a kiss on her forehead, a soft "good night, Toph," and then her mother simply vanishes. Toph cannot feel her footsteps, cannot feel the door sliding shut behind her. Nothing. She's trapped in the white.
And so every night she waits until long after everyone else has gone to sleep. Then, Toph slides out of her confusing, confounding bed, moving gingerly until her foot touches solid ground and she can see again.
It's child's play to sneak out into the garden; now that she's freed from her bed she can "see" all the servants from rooms away. Once she's made it outside, she heads straight for the pile of gravel that's used to refresh the walks and the dry gardens.
She flops down into the rocks with an unlady-like grunt of satisfaction. The gravel makes way for her and covers her with a satisfyingly rough blanket, but it does not coddle her. She feels each bump and jagged bit, but that's the way her bed is supposed to be. She's supposed to be able to feel the distant footsteps, the slow growing of roots beneath the earth, the deep background rumbling of tectonic plates sliding against each other far, far away. It lulls her to sleep, far more comforting than any stupid featherbed could hope to be.
Toph may be blind, but she likes to think that she dreams in color.